axoxnxs ™ Anthony Jay
Ptak axoxnxs ™ Anthony Jay
PtakMy apparatus frees the composer from the despotism of the twelve-note
tempered piano scale.
- Lev Sergeivich Theremin, 1927
Anthony Jay Ptak is an artist and a composer born in Brooklyn, New York in 1970. He grew up near the Brookhaven National Laboratory and the RCA Radio Central testing facility. An inviolable autodidacticist, he has studied with Tony Conrad, Paul Sharits, Lydia Kavina, and Herbert Brün, and had technical consultations with Robert Moog. He performed at the First International Theremin Festival. He has been a guest theremin artist under director Scott Wyatt at the historic Experimental Music Studios at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign since 2000. He was appointed visiting researcher in 2001, and participated in the C4A Computing for the Arts initiative for Fine and Applied Arts at UIUC. He taught sound art and musique concrète for new media artists at the School of Art and Design at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has presented at Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS), School of the Art Institute, Chicago Cultural Center, St. Louis Art Museum, Krannert Art Museum, FFMUP Princeton University, Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, Roulette Intermedium, The Kitchen, and Issue Project Room in New York. He was first introduced to the theremin in 1987 by improviser Eric Ross. He began playing an etherwave theremin kit 0017 in 1995. A. J. Ptak is a founding member of the New York Theremin Society. He currently resides in New York City and is a visitng scholar at NYU Department of Art and Art Professions.
Video
Video 2:00 © 2000
New music of this twenty-first century requires, in fact it necessitates,
a non-music. Sound as art is an axis of information constrained only by our
perceptive bandwidth, dismissive of all systems and parameter limitations.
- Anthony Ptak
New work scheduled for October 2008 at Chelsea Art Museum. 556 West 22nd Street, New York, NY. Details to follow.
Works inspired by shortwave radio at 106BLDG30. Brooklyn Navy Yard on April 19, 2008. Curated by Bruce Tovsky.
The most anticipated 2008 performance at The Stone in East Village of New York City. Series curator Elliott Sharp. Scheduled for March 25, 2008 at 10:00 pm. Location is at the corner of Avenue C and 2nd Street. Theremin antenna control of digital oscillators, software, and acousmatic sound.
Aelita at International House 3701 Chestnut Street Philadelphia, PA. February 9th 2008 at 8:00 pm. Theremin sound for film with Gene Coleman and Ensemble Noamnesia. Aelita, Queen of Mars. Russia, 1924. 100 min. Discussion and demonstration to follow screening and performance.
Two theremins and electronic visual projections at Galapagos Art Space in Williamsburg Brooklyn on December 26, 2007 at 8:00 pm. Located at 70 North 6th Street Brooklyn, New York 11211. Javier Diez Ena, theremin. Anthony Ptak, theremin. Zach Layton, projections. Darmstadt Contemporary Music Series.
Ensemble featuring monochord by Ptak in improv performance with Cyrus Pireh on alto sax, Matt Mehlan on alto sax, and Tony Lowe on guitar at Zebulon Cafe Concert in Williamsburg Brooklyn on November 14, 2007 at 10:00 pm.
New York Phonographers at 6th Street and Avenue B Community Garden, Lower East Side, New York City, NY. September 30, 2007 at 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm.
The
Kitchen 512 West 19th Street New York, NY. Exhibition September
7 through October 20, 2007. Between Thought and Sound: Graphic Notation
in Contemporary Music. Opening reception on Friday September 7, 2007 at
6:00 pm until 8:00 pm.
Exploring the intersection of drawing and sound, this show includes
experimental scores by more than twenty contemporary composers who relinquish
traditional musical notation in favor of their own invented visual systems of
pictorial or graphic elements.
Curated by Alex Waterman, Debra Singer, and Matthew Lyons.
Miguel
Abreu Gallery 36 Orchard Street New York, NY (between Canal and
Hester) June 3 through July 28. Performance July 12, 2007 at 7:30 pm.
Version for Miguel Abreu Gallery New York, NY 2007
Program note by Anthony Jay Ptak (b. 1970)
In a public space where people are speaking, and not necessarily to one
another, there are messages being sent. Each utterance of sound is a
transmission, a reception, an exchange offset by noise. A moment of speech is
an incident. When these moments, or indices, coincide they are coincident.
Coincident relations are not intentioned. They occur in the recognition of
our perception of a system of relations. A coincident dichotomy can produce a
third object, out of difference, that would not have otherwise been
perceived. The action of observation produces an affect on that system which
is being observed. Compositional practice (that is message transmission and
reception) is dependant on an axiom, a mutable operand of distraction, as an
audience listens for this message.
37th Festival
Synthese Bourges June 10, 2007. Institut International de
Musique Electroacoustique de Bourges, France. Melancholy - Projet Oeuvre
Ouverte.
The Sympathetic (2007) Duration: 5:00 minutes Composer: Anthony Jay
Ptak
Program Note: The Sympathetic refers to the sympathy of others, as
well as to sympathetic vibrations in sound. Melancholy is the transitory resonance or emotional
affect of this work. In this sound space it is hoped that the work alters the
human spirit in musical consolation. Although the elapsed time of this
composition is five minutes, the perceived duration is infinite. The
loneliness, fears, and despondency of a melancholic human struggle is
transformed, as a transcendental aural reflection dissipates into an ether of
tears and joy. The inspired contradiction of this sadness leaves the listener
of this music in a disposition of feeling an effervescent melancholia. -
A.J. Ptak
The Kitchen May
24, 2007 8pm. 512 West 19th Street, New York, NY.
A Lab is a Lab is a
Lab curated by Bradley Eros and Matthew Lyons.
An evening of live projections and musical performances featuring unique
collaborations between sound and image makers utilizing unusual instruments
and sources including the theremin, brainwaves, photocells, oscilloscopes,
X-rays, contact microphones, anamorphic lenses, and the magic lantern.
Participating artists Maria Chavez,
Angie Eng, Bradley Eros, Andy
Graydon, Sarah Ibrahim, Zach Layton, Anthony Ptak, Joel Schlemowitz,
Lary Seven, Ray Sweeten, and Keiko
Uenishi each perform solos and duets that explore the subversions and
rediscoveries connecting science, mystery, and desire.
Media programs at The Kitchen are made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state
agency.
Roulette
Intermedium May 20, 2007 8:00 pm. 20 Greene Street between Canal and Grand
Streets, SoHo, New York, NY.
"Cyrus Pireh is the world's greatest living
electric guitarist. Anthony Jay Ptak is an experimental thereminist, artist,
and composer." - Roulette.org
1. All Notes for guitar and theremin. Duration 20:00
2. Acrosynaptic for theremin and autoguitar. Duration 20:00
View description and photo.
GCAP Artists
Against AIDS April 27 - 30, 2007 at the Orpheum, 346 N. Neil
Street, Champaign, IL.
Hearing Aids: Sound Artists Against
AIDS CD project.
Open Source Art April 21 - 22, 2007 12
E. Washington, Champaign, IL.
Sound art works by 13 sound artists. Runs continuous.
ASC March 29 to April 1, 2007 Urbana, IL.
Constructivism, Design, Cybernetics: Radical, Social, 2nd-order. Independent
Media Center 202 S. Broadway.
Acrosynaxis
performance and presentation.
Sensorium series March 16, 2007 Theremin Society in residence at Issue
Project Room, 400 Carroll Street between Bond and Nevins Brooklyn, New
York.
Synesthesia is the theme for this performance
series.
View poster. View schedule.
View picture.
February 24, 2007 The couplings series presented as part
of Brooklyn Academy of
Music Brooklyn NEXT festival. Issue Project Room's Theremin Society
performance at Issue Project Room, 400 Carroll Street between Bond and Nevins
Brooklyn, New York.
Duo performances with:
Anthony Ptak and Nicolas Collins. Michael Evans and Andrea Parkins. Rob
Schwimmer and Dorit Chrysler. David Simons and Lisa Karrer. Elizabeth Brown
and Stephanie Skaff.
View schedule. See poster. 
February 10, 2007 First set performance with Alex Waterman cellist
at Issue Project
Room series. Second set Lee
Ranaldo + Leah
Singer.
Curated by Suzanne Fiol.
Theremin Duo and solo performances with Javier Díez Ena Friday, January 19,
2007, 10:00 pm at Ladinamo Asociación
Cultural, C/ Mira el Sol 2, Madrid (España).
Thanks to Javi-thereminista and Laura Díez Ena. Details available soon.
Announcement on portal para la difusión del arte
sonoro.
Media Lab Madrid Experimental theremin
performance Saturday, January 13, 2007, 7:00 pm at Media Lab in Centro
Cultural Conde Duque, C/ Conde Duque 11, 28015 · Madrid (España).
Plataforma de encuentro para la creación y difusión de las artes sonoras y
visuales.
Sincere thanks to Daniel Gonzalez, DJ Hidráulico, Marcos García.
Details available soon.
Ophoniste silver medal in collaborative sound
performance What Time is Love with Amy Granat. Included cell phone,
broken glass, and utensils. Jury: Andrew Phillips (Flavorpill) Michael J Schumacher (Diapason) Nick
Stillman (PS1).
American
Ophoniste Idol Tuesday, November 21, 8:30pm at Monkey Town,
58 North 3rd Street between Blythe and Kent in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New
York.
"The Four Ophones is an
interactive sound installation that allows the users to record sounds that
are replayed infinitely until replaced by other sounds. The installation
provides a space for playful musical collaboration and language-independent
conversations where the visitors themselves become composers,
instrumentalists, and listeners at the same time. The Ophones foster
everything from subtle interference etudes to collaborative chanting,
semi-automated social commentary to dense polyrhythmic drone parties." -
Unsworn
Sound Art for Sound Minds A lecture and performance
series sponsored by the Lorado Taft Lectureship on Art. Featuring sound
artist Nicolas
Collins. Opening antenna interference performance by Anthony Ptak.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, November 9, 2006, 7:30 pm.
Curated by AJ Ptak.
New Picture from SASM performance!
(Photo courtesy David L. Hays)
Noisefest! October 20 - 22, 2006 - LNAC Lemp
Neighborhood Arts Center 3301 Lemp Ave. St Louis, Missouri. Experimental
Aesthetic and Composition Workshop.
Performance Sunday October 22, 2006 at 3:15 pm.
Curated by Mark Sarich.
Photo
Video
Video 6:19 ©
2006
Spellbound Axoxnxs is now featured on Cygnus Radio syndicated
theremin podcast hosted by David Vesel.
Most recent broadcasts Sunday August 27, 2006, Sunday January 7, 2007.
Benefit performance event for
Chicago artist Patrick McCarthy.
September 1-2, 2006 7pm to 11pm at Peter
Jones Gallery 1806 West Cuyler, 2nd Floor, Chicago, Illinois.
Informodulation A theremin antenna based
sound art installation.
Experience this new media interactive art work at the Krannert Art
Museum on view from August 24 through September 24, 2006 located at 500
East Peabody Drive, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois.
Informodulation. Mixed media (metal electrode, horn,
oscillator.) I find an intuitive sense of electro-magnetism. I observe
changes in the atmosphere. One is made aware of the perpetual syntactic flux
of communal affect. The fragility of our environment is counter balanced only
by the unpredictability of influence. Every decision made swings the pendulum
into frenetic micro oscillations rendering macroscopic capacitance shifts. A
society is prescient in the presence of an anti-communicative resonance that
makes one necessary. Informodulation is our state of resistance wrapped in a
valanced capacity for making an impossible social change by modulating the
infrastructure of temporary systems we perceive in dissipation. Information
presents itself. One interprets. Modulation results in an action one chooses
to take. Each gesture is a provocation in a field of indexes. - AJ
Ptak
Theremin Photos featured in Paste
Magazine article about the New York City Theremin Summit.
Issue 23, pages 20-21. On stands now! Radiohead on cover.
Photos of thereminist Anthony Ptak and the NYC Theremin Society by Alicia
Hansen.
Theremin Performance in Spain Calart Actual - Iglesia de
San Juan Nepomuceno July 22, 2006 8pm at Plaza del Teatro S/N Real Sitio de
la Granja de San Ildefonso - 40100 Segovia - Espana.
Recording now available.
The Art of Music STAC Exhibition July 15 to August 19, 2006 at Mills Pond House Gallery 660 Route 25A St. James, New York.
Copper Score, Copper Performance, Copper Pipe works and documents now on display.
Points in a Circle July 8,
2006 8pm at Issue Project Room 400 Carroll Street between Bond and Nevins
Brooklyn, New York. Site-specific work presented on IPR's 16-Channel
Hemispheric Speaker System. Multi-oscillator polyphonic theremin performance
with Cyrus Pireh, Stephan Moore, and David Linton.
Curated by Suzanne Fiol and Stephan Moore.
The End of Music. I recognize the end of music. As an artist
I establish a relation without enforcing a relation. An audience, that is to
say a public, ought never be captive. A space can be transformed by the
unfamiliar in an arena of recognition. The work is the connection made by the
receiver of information, the transmission is the catalyst for this exchange.
My expectations are to modulate the signal of infrastructure, to utilize
simple means to produce complex results. The theremin is electromagnetism,
aether made present in the modulation of transformative wave energy that
inducts and traces an exponential axis of gestural interference. The
frequency of oscillation along a unified temporal axis, reflects a recursive
bridging of distance in a soundscape of interference. We listen to the world
as a system of associative indices. Sound is a physical axis that occupies
and transforms space. The heterophony of the
theremin antenna is navigation. - AJ Ptak
Millennium
Film Workshop April 29, 2006 8pm at Millennium Film Workshop. 66
East 4th Street (between Bowery and 2nd Avenue) New York, New York. See the
Millennium site.
Curated by Jennifer MacMillan and Bradley
Eros.
Acrosynaxis performance for thereminvox
Utilizing the theremin's principle of interference to feed back into itself
an exponential deconstruction of the instrument, the frequency of oscillation
along a unified temporal axis, reflects a recursive bridging of distance in a
soundscape of interference. Much like the 1000th of a second captured image
of Warrick's hovering hummingbird, or the Kino-Glaz reality 24 times per
second delineated by Dziga Vertov, or John Cage's Future of Music
Credo which alludes to Beethoven as a material operating at 50 times per
second and rejects imitative use of the theremin. This electro-acousmatic
work concentrates on sound as a carrier of information. - AJ Ptak
New Picture from Millennium
performance! (Photo by Peter Steinberg)
Phonologistic
Auralities Sound Art Installation opens April 21, 2006 at Independent Media
Center Urbana, Illinois.
Sound is an axis of information. - AJ Ptak
24-channel collaborative work in a former US postal facility with 13 of my
sound artist students. Part of an immersive arts event Late Night Space
curated by improviser Jason Finkelman
for Boneyard Arts Festival. Sponsored by 40 North Champaign County Arts, Culture and
Entertainment Council.
New York Experimental Theremin
Orchestra April 8, 2006 8pm at Issue Project Room 400 Carroll
Street between Bond and Nevins Brooklyn, New York.
See the poster.
Panel discussion April 9, 2006 at 1pm.
Issue
Project Room February 23, 2006 8pm at Issue Project Room 400
Carroll Street between Bond and Nevins Brooklyn, New York.
Multi-oscillator polyphonic theremin performance with sound artists Stephan Moore and Tres Silencio, plus digital video art
by Diana Slattery.
See one of the hemispheres.
New pictures from Issue Project Room
performance! (photos by Peter Gannushkin)
New York Experimental Theremin
Orchestra February 4, 2006 8pm at Issue Project Room 400 Carroll
Street between Bond and Nevins Brooklyn, New York.
See the poster.
Thereminism. I use this term in order to differentiate a
twenty-first century advocacy for the advancement of this antenna instrument
of inventor Lev Termen from any fixed ideas. The theremin is
electromagnetism, aether made present in the modulation of transformative
wave energy that inducts and traces an exponential axis of gestural interference. - AJ
Ptak
Wolfensohn Hall December 21, 2005 theremin presentation
at IAS Princeton, New Jersey.
Thanks to artist-in-residence composer Jon Magnussen.
Theremin Orchestra December 2, 2005 8pm at Issue Project Room 400 Carroll Street between Bond and Nevins Brooklyn, New York
Thereminism. I use this term in order to differentiate a twenty-first century advocacy for the advancement of this antenna instrument of inventor Lev Termen from any fixed ideas. The theremin is electromagnetism, aether made present in the modulation of transformative wave energy that inducts and traces an exponential axis of gestural interference. - AJ Ptak
FFMUP
October 18, 2005 8pm theremin performance at Terrace Club 62 Washington Road
Princeton, New Jersey.
See picture.
Thanks to sound artists/ composers Seth
Cluett and Newton
Armstrong.
The Art of Music STAC Exhibition July 23 to August 27, 2005 at Mills Pond House Gallery 660 Route 25A St. James, New York.
This artwork is intended to evoke both the abstract and functional aspects of music. It is a visual representation of the physical space music occupies. It is also an instrument that can be played in any tuning configuration. Vibration is transferred from steel to wood. Many experiments were done using a device called a monochord inspired by the mathematician Pythagoras in the 6th century BC; it had one string used to measure ratios. Ekphonetic notation, to which the title refers, was one of the earliest attempts to systematize the way in which we hear (reception) and play music (transmission). This notation was based on speech and not exact pitch in Greece and Asia in the 5th to 7th centuries AD. Sulponticello means to play near or on the bridge of the instrument resulting in a sound with a voice-like rasp when bowed and more upper harmonic frequencies when plucked. With this instrument the artist seeks to create complex results from simple economical means. The work serves as a kinetic reference to the temporal (horizontal) and the timbral (vertical) aspects of a musical axis. The receiver of this work is encouraged to examine systems critically and to experiment as listener, observer, and composer in the world. - AJ Ptak
Theremin ther e min sometimes ter n -s [after Leo Theremin b. 1896 engineer and inventor]: a purely melodic instrument of the electronic family typically played by moving the right hand between two projecting electrodes with the left hand controlling dynamics and articulation - ther e min ist 1.
1.G & C Merriam Co. 1971 p. 2372 Webster's Third New International
Copper Pipe invented instrument built 1995. An audience, that is to say a public, ought never be captive. In my public works I attempt to establish a relation without enforcing a relation. Listening is a way we navigate a space. This space can be transformed by the unfamiliar in the arena of recognition. The work is the connection made by the receiver of information, the transmission is the catalyst for this exchange. Related compositions include Incidentia.01 and American Copper.
American Copper composition
written 2002, MAVerick Festival for Copper Pipe and bowed Berimbau. Related
compositions include Incidentia.01.
See also Lycaena phlaeas.
Video
Video 1:00 © 2002
Wavefields CD The Experimental Music Studios of UIUC, Fall 2005 release. Liner notes: Axoxnxs (2005) [7:00] This electro-acousmatic work concentrates on sound as a carrier of information. We listen to the world as a system of associative indices. The acoustics of the natural world are analyzed, along with synthetically generated phenomena. Sound is a physical axis that occupies and transforms space. The heterophony of the theremin antenna is navigation. All sonic materials acquired, performed, and assembled by the composer. - AJ Ptak
Silence and Time Colloquium at IAS Participant in an interdisciplinary
discussion group at Institute for Advanced Study, Fall 2005.
Insistentia.05 Project directions, composition,
and performance for Quaker Meeting House.
TEPMEH event at Krannert Art Museum in October
2000.
Thanks to art historian Paula
Braga and to Fabio Kon.
Photo from
November performance with Wilco Botermans at Highdive.
Article about Botermans USA visit.
© 2000 2008 A. Ptak axoxnxs all rights reserved.
Contact to request a work of art, lecture, installation, recording, score, film, article, session, permissions, consultation, composition, or performance.
Contact: info (at) axoxnxs.com
CV as PDF in CAA format.
Biography abridged short form as PDF.
Please take a business card.
Podcast for pod feed aggregator.
Podcast for pod feed aggregator. (Launches iTunes)
Vodcast for vod feed aggregator. (Launches iTunes)
